


Thank You for Asking

by helena_s_renn



Category: Def Leppard, Music RPF
Genre: Drinking to Cope, Drunk Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Rick taking care of Phil, Steve Clark's death, Terror Twins (heavily referred to)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: This is a request fill from another site, Rockfic. I was asked what Rick and Phil were up to while Joe and Sav were wallowing in booze and sex (after Steve). Kind of the same thing, kind of not.





	Thank You for Asking

**Author's Note:**

> If Rick seems detached in this, too calm, it's because he _is_. Everyone handles grief differently and he has not had time to process. 
> 
> Possible consent issues since Phil's drunk. Consider yourself warned.
> 
> As always, this is fiction. Whatever really happened, was no doubt not in this manner. The author's impressions and commentary of/on Steve are not meant to reflect badly or be disrepectful. 
> 
> Thank you infinitely to Christian.Howe for beta/review, meta, and everything.

-1991

The call that morning hadn't hit him hard. For fuck's sake, Rick had thought after he hung up, you don't wake someone with news like that. Terrible, devastating, the worst. Death of their brother, their muse, their powerhouse, someone's beautiful son... He couldn't believe it. Just couldn't.

By noon, it still hadn't hit him. If it had, it was in more of a projection of how the other band members might be taking it. One, especially. Rick had allowed himself a few tears then. It was a normal reaction, he told himself. But the fact was, they did not feel sincere, or real, and he stopped. One day, he was going to have to let it run its course, just not yet. He would hold this numbness for now - perhaps pride or arrogance allowed him to think he'd be able to hold off what was sure to be vicious and visceral when it came.

So yes. How Rick got roped into being Phil's babysitter? The simple expedient of volunteering. Someone had to. Three in Sheffield, one in London. That one should not, could not be left alone for any longer in the yawning gape of eternity than he already had been. Rick was one man, maybe the wrong man, but he'd have to do.

The call he placed to Joe accomplished two things: notification - not permission, Rick stubbornly asserted - of where he'd be. Funny enough, Joe had already heard from Phil, who was reportedly hitting the bottle with a vengeance. Also, Joe was adamant Rick not talk to Sav yet. It was no mystery who would get that privilege.

Anyone with an IQ above turnip could predict that Sav and Joe would be busy with each other for a while. It had been a long time coming. Too long. Rick was sick to death of the three-way pining and the quadrangle.

Okay, horrible turn of phrase, that. Too soon! Too late, too soon, too goddamned fucking awful to think about what it all would mean to their entire existence. Possibly what the rest had gone through - to a lesser degree - over him. He'd escaped with his life, after all.

To continue, however: no, he wasn't envious. Glad he'd avoided being caught up in it. He orbited the outer reaches with infrequent contact, always watching, and that was fine.

...

He'd found Phil in his flat, wandering aimlessly from room to room if the next interim was any indication, in some ratty old boxers and slippers at four in the afternoon. Whatever alcohol Phil had found necessary earlier had burned its way through him. He smelled like 40-year-old Scotch and his eyes glowed bloodshot, making the ice of them icier. Too brittle to hug, neither of them ready to break or snap, they didn't mention why Rick was there.

Approximately ten hours later, they were somewhere in Greater London. That was the best Rick could describe their location: "somewhere". He hadn't wanted to go out. January in London, no matter how warmly one dressed, left one out of steaming breath and chilled through to the bone. But Phil had insisted.

And Phil had got drunk again. Falling down, black-out, mother of all hang-overs drunk. Being that he'd not had so much as a glass of champagne in three years and he wasn't a very big guy to begin with, he was also a lightweight. It had taken only six pints and as many shots (in as many sketchy pubs) to get him there. Rick had patiently followed him around the unfamiliar streets, drinking half as much on double the tolerance, watching Phil's mood swing with each new drink. Jovial and talking to strangers, buying everyone in the room a round. Pissed. No, Phil, don't start fights with 1,95cm muscleheads. Giggly, kissing young just-turned-18 ladies who thought they knew who he was. Smart-arsed enough to get them tossed out of one place. To which he promptly pissed in their frozen window-box garden.

If Rick had had any use for psychology, he might have said that Phil was trying to fast-track the stages of grief in one night in a flurry of surface emotions. The Northerner in him wanted to withdraw, would have scorned a man, regardless of his orientation, for carrying on over a male lover like whatever was between them was valid, or could possibly be more than physical. Conversely, whatever had made him Leppard from the age of 15 would not allow him to abandon this man, who, though not as long with them as the others, had stood united with them and by Rick's side through his crisis. How could he do any less? When Phil grew too unsteady for Rick to prop him up for much longer, he asked the current bartender to call them a taxi, tipped her well, and took Phil home.

...

He hadn't really intended to stay. But he also hadn't thought about where he would go. After something like an hour in the cab between bad road conditions and traffic, Phil was slightly less plastered than at the last pub, but he had not uttered a word during the entire ride and Rick was worried. He would never say it to Phil's face, but he couldn't help thinking that in a sense, this loss had the same repercussions that losing an arm had, for him. Yes, Phil still had both of his hands. The problem was that he needed four, and another head (or two), another heart.

Dumped unceremoniously face-down into his too-large bed by Rick, who could no longer hold up his dead but uncooperative weight, Phil rooted around, then flipped over again and grabbed Rick's hand. "Shtay. Sleep with me. Need... S-someone..." And there it was, right on schedule: The next phase of Phil's drunkenness - and maybe his grieving process for all Rick knew - the blond. Not dumb - horny.

"Why didn't you pull while we were out?" Rick groused at him. It wouldn't make for a good morning if the two of them woke up to... themselves. Hungover with the wrong bloke in his bed, no telling what Phil might say or do.

"Please?" Phil lowered his eyelids to half-mast. He smiled that little secret smile of his, there and gone on half his face in a tenth of a second. It appeared at times when it would be inappropriate to laugh at an unintended innuendo, or when he came up with a great new riff. Or, sometimes, when he looked at Steve. He should not be doing that at Rick. But...

Rick wasn't stupid: He'd known before he'd even left home that there was a good chance they'd end up here, doing this. Phil had joined Def Leppard the summer Rick was 19 and sure, they'd had a go at each other. Rite of passage or whatever. But soon enough it was Steve & Phil, Phil & Steve, and that was that. The only way Rick could do this, even approach the subject, was by being sarcastic, if not downright misleading, so that he could blow it off if it backfired. One more thing, he had to be sure Phil was coherent enough to know who he was with, and why. "I will. This once. No bitching about your sore arse in the morning."

"Wait, whaddyah mean, by meshorarse?" Phil couldn't quite enunciate all the sounds, proving how wasted he still was. Then his twitchy hands got busy and his clothes disappeared to the four corners, almost by magic. Still standing there shuffling his feet, Rick was trying to look elsewhere but not really. He supposed that spoke for itself: he wasn't all that opposed. As he had said, just once. He'd walled off the reason he needed to look out for Phil within the act of doing so. Now he decided he no longer had to, but wanted to, thereby avoiding the reason further, for a little longer.

Leaving his own clothes in a pile on the floor, Rick crawled in. He wasn't the least bit hard. Phil was. But then, they all knew that the tailwind of someone walking by a little too fast could give Phil wood. It didn't take long, though. A warm body, a need for solace... No, it didn't take Rick much, either. Once they got into it, Phil was sooooo needy - he wanted to kiss and roll around; he had his hands all over Rick's body, pinching and tweaking and petting and squeezing, and it was just too much.

"Phil..." Phil was leading southward with an open mouth, deaf to everything but that which was driving him on. "Phil!" Rick would never last through one of their guitarist's blow jobs, which were, by reputation, the sloppiest and nastiest of all.

Phil's floppy blond hair flew as he jerked his head up. "Wha--?" If he hadn't been so drunk, he probably would've blown his load already, the level of arousal he was displaying. Sweaty and flushed, his hands trembling, lips swollen and red from kissing, and the obvious thing, his hips grinding unrestrained. How? Rick wondered. They'd only been fooling around for maybe ten minutes. Phil must've been thinking about it on the way home.

Rick waited till he focused. Straight-forward, logical, compassionate was best, now, if he could manage. "I'm taking care of you tonight. Want you on your knees, head down, and--"

"No. I wanna ride you," Phil got all raspy. It was hard to resist.

"If you glove me up and prep yourself, I'll let you... for a bit. That's easier for you than for me." Rick was more than capable of both those things, but as he said, easier with two hands.

In answer, Phil's teeth flashed and he leaned across Rick to reach the appointed drawer. True to his word, Rick got himself situated and then Phil was on him, using light, quick fingers to wrap him; dropping down, surrounding him, unexpectedly tight, meaning it had been a while, quite a while. Steve had impressive junk for such a skinny bloke, just another item on their list of "everyone knows that" because Steve never locked the door, not when it was related to sex. Passive aggressive bugger. Or no, Rick remembered some of the on- and off-stage antics, not that, just a strange approval-seeking Steve thing.

But he should not go there. Not now. Phil was shaking it on his lap, rubbing that furry torso of his all over him. It was probably that one thing that had put Rick off him, shallow though it was. It actually felt kind of nice - if he closed his eyes. The hair was soft, not scratchy or bristly. Rick let him grind a little while longer, till his navel filled with a pool of Phil's slick. "Okay, gerroff!"

Phil made a grumpy noise but then toppled to the side, pulling off so fast that Rick's erection slapped against this belly. Slow-motion, Phil gathered his arms and legs under him, knees far apart. "Do me, S-- ...Rick." He lowered his gaze to the sheet directly under him. "Sorry."

"You okay?" Why did he bother with the question - Rick knew he wasn't. Far from it. Surface 'okay' then, confirmation. Like, consenting, and not freaking out.

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"Thanks for askin' but I told you: Yeah. So... _now_. Unless you wanna switch it up."

Rick was behind him to slide back in, down and deep, and Phil pushed his arse against him like he couldn't get enough. There was a beat to it, a timing. Started furious and heavy, four-guitars-loud and riding high through a wall of Marshalls and crashing cymbals; wound down into a well-trodden path of just a snare, a kick, and strummed electrified strings, the movement inspired not by them but by loves lost everywhere. 

Sometime in the middle, Rick slid his hand upwards and curled it around the back of Phil's neck, under his hair, held him there and draped himself over his back. Only their hips pulsed, slackening, intensifying. Between one breath and the next, Phil inhaled sharply and shot into the pillow he'd been humping. The spasms set Rick off, too. It was a relief to have it over with. They had too much to face in the days ahead to linger over this.

"Alright?" Rick asked again, waiting to slide out rather than pull.

"No."

The release, while somehow muted but for the few seconds of outpouring, had opened up the door - Rick was starting to grasp exactly how 'not fine' he felt. "Me, neither."

Here, though he couldn't catch the scent of it over that of what they had just done, was where love had lived and died.

"I'm sorry, mate."

"Why are you sorry? _I'm_ sorry." Had words ever been less adequate?

Phil turned to face away as he moved out from under Rick, but he didn't kick his drummer out of bed. He allowed him to curl around him from behind, hold him, even if there was no comfort. "For using you, I guess. All night." He sounded stone cold sober.

"I offered."

"Guess you did."

 

-Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> It's Desert Song, if you were wondering. 
> 
> Thx for reading; any feedback is welcome.


End file.
